OB and Point Loma Brief News In Review

It has been confirmed that Alessandro Speroni is the 41 year old man who died after being pulled from the surf along Sunset Cliffs last Sunday, December 29th. He was the owner of the Soleluna Cafe in Cortez Hill and was recently married.

The County Medical Examiner’s investigation is still on-going, so the cause of death has been undetermined. However, Speroni was pulled from the ocean unconscious and paramedics were unable to revive him. This was near the 1200 block of Sunset Cliffs Boulevard.

OB’s Slightly Stoopid to Play in Costa Rica

Our best-known local band, Slightly Stoopid, is playing in Jaco, Costa Rica January 16-19, in what is being called the Jungle Jam IV. The band – led by multi-instrumentalists and founding members, Miles Doughty and Kyle McDonald – be joined by special guest Don Carlos of Black Uhuru.

Phil’s BBQ Up for Renovation- Customers Invited to “Shutdown Sweepstakes”

The Point Loma restaurant of Phil’s BBQ is closed for a remodel. Phil’s BBQ announced it has temporarily closed the doors at this location for substantial renovations. The renovations include an expansive kitchen remodel, a number of water-saving and energy-efficient pieces of equipment, eight additional tap handles in the bar area, and the installation of tap handles in the main restaurant, enabling dine-in customers to order beer with their meal.

While the Point Loma restaurant will be closed six weeks from December 30– February 10 to undergo $1 million worth of renovations, Phil’s BBQ is kicking off a “Shutdown Sweepstakes” where customers can win one of 34 prizes, including the Grand Prize: $2,500 cash plus $2,500 gift card to Phil’s BBQ.

Customers can cash-in on the shutdown by participating in the Shutdown Sweepstakes. To participate, customers who drive by the Point Loma restaurant between December 31 – February 9 will receive a time and date-stamped sweepstakes entry form. The entry form must be filled out with name, phone and email address and then taken in-person to the Santee or San Marcos locations during normal business hours and within 48 hours of the date-stamped entry form. In addition to the grand prize, there will be several private Phil’s BBQ parties and $2,000 worth of gift cards given away.

I was first introduced to the concept of hydroponics while visiting Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla. in 1984 while on vacation with my family. It was a concept in a futuristic setting. Years later I was again introduced to a new concept in farming by Paul Reebs, the owner of Point Loma Farms in San Diego, Calif. where my chef had begun sourcing some micro greens from his small urban farm using aquaponics.

I was blown away by the closed system simplicity of it. I ordered one for my Sustainable Life Project farm-to-fork classes as a model for sustainable farming principles. Today, Aquaponics is gaining commercial traction as an answer to a number of food related problems. Aquaponics uses the natural waste from fishponds as a natural fertilizer and watering system for plants as the nitrogen rich water runs past the root systems that absorb and thrive on these nutrients. The plants filter water returning it clean, back to the fish. A perfect, balanced system! No need for fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, genetically modified seeds or organisms.

What is Aquaponics? A food production system that combines conventional aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as fish or prawns in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment.Commercially, aquaponics solves a lot of problems conventional or organic farming cannot. The world has serious water shortages and California is no exception. Aquaponics uses 3% of the water needed in traditional soil grown plants.Because aquaponics is grown under controlled environments there is no threat of climate change, weather fluctuations or invasive pests. In California, this closed system can be achieved with energy neutral or positive results.

Plants grown through aquaponics mature at a rate three times that of conventionally grown crops. Yields per square foot can be maximized by vertical growing design therefore increasing the profitability and managing the cost of product so it remains accessible to more people.

Aquaponic systems can be built anywhere. Early research and modeling was done by the US government as a possible way to solve food issues in third world countries. Today, the concept of aquaponics is gaining traction in places like Las Vegas, Detroit, Boston, Chicago and Brooklyn. As more consumers demand locally grown, organic product in places that traditionally must ship or fly ingredients from around the world, the popularity of aquaponics with urban farmers expands.

Aquaponics offers two channels of revenue. Just about any fish that is currently farm raised can contribute to the aquaponic system. Fish are raised organically and harvested for local markets. Plants are grown organically under clean, controlled conditions without the threat of traditional enemies like rain, temperature variations, bugs or fungus. Heirloom seed varieties can be used to differentiate a particular grower the same way small boutique farms define themselves with unusual heirloom plants.

The other big payoff is green jobs in underserved urban food deserts. Across the country urban farmers are transforming vacant factories, mills and processing plants into aquaponic farms. These farms offer jobs and fresh, local food to the immediate community and to the restaurants and markets who support the local food movement.

As we prepare Tender Greens for food security in the future, aquaponics will play a greater role in our planning. We imagine a day when Tender Greens develops a network of aquaponic farms in every city we do business so that we always enjoy a consistent supply of locally grown, organic fish and vegetables without disrupting our taxed environment.

Taking a play from her own book, all indicators point to an “A+” for Lynn Reaser, chief economist of the Fermanian Business and Economic Institute at Point Loma Nazarene University, and chief economist of the state of California’s Controller’s Council of Economic Advisors.

Reaser has been in her post at the FBEI for four years. In that time, she’s produced economic reports and forecasts on everything from the military’s impact in San Diego, to the cost of alternative sources of water to bioinspiration. While she admits that she and her team have had their share of misses, her track record, which includes producing the most accurate economic forecast in the country for 2011 to 2012, is stellar.

Reaser said one of the keys to her success at the FBEI is the institution’s objectivity.

“We do try to be very objective- the assessment of our scorecard each year helps us understand our biases and some of the errors that might take place in our various statistical and economic calculations,” Reaser said. “Economics is not an exact science- I had often despaired of that fact, but actually even medicine or physics are not pure exact disciplines, but entail significant degrees of judgment. It is important not to bring one’s tendency to be optimistic or pessimistic or lean politically left or right into the forecast picture.”

She gave her 2013 economic forecast a ‘B’ to ‘B+’ ranking, citing misses on sequestration, lower inflation than expected and a slightly lower GDP growth than predicted as reasons for the mark.

In her role at the FBEI Reaser doesn’t just connect the dots, as she calls it, between all these global, national and local factors, but takes an active teaching role as well.

“Teaching has been a new experience,” she said. “I learn probably as much from the students as they learn from me and perhaps probably even more. But it is certainly an experience where a teacher must truly know his or her subject to be able to instruct it.”

And by all accounts she does. After her first college course in economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she would return for a master’s and Ph.D, was enough to convince her that business economics was the field for her, Reaser entered the banking world, where she remained until 2009.

Cathy Gallagher, executive director of the FBEI, said when staff at what was then called the Fermanian Business Center learned that Reaser was retiring from her post as chief economist for Bank of America’s Investment Strategies Group and was interested in starting a business institute at PLNU, they jumped on the opportunity.

“When she joined us four years ago, we’d never had an economic aspect to our work- it was more business focused,” Gallagher said. “So she opened up the door to the economics behind our work. It’s pretty much led by her.”

And if Reaser has anything to say about it, it will stay that way for years to come, as she has no plans to retire anytime soon.

“I’ve told the university they’ll probably have to carry me out,” she said.

I was glad to see Rush Limbaugh’s sponsors pull back from their slots on his show causing his hate filled show to be dropped in numerous markets.

The fact this fellow Phil is a financial sponsor of right wing politics is not merely “personal politics” it is a matter of public record and it is fair game to call for a soft boycott of his restaurant as a result of those actions. People should be aware of whio is who in the money& politics game.

Same as the Dominoes boycott. Unfortunately, politics is about money at this moment in America. Time for Americans to educate themselves & spend their dollar “votes” wisely.

Yep, all the major food manufacturers have to put in the high fructose corn syrup. Now, a really good recipe for BBQ sauce would be something like this:
Tomato puree (some beefstake, some romas), vinegar, touch of molasses, salt, spices, (secret ingredient, secret ingredient), smoked secret ingredient, garlic, touch of paprika, touch of secret ingredient, dessicated beef parts, & a secret ingredient. And there you have it, a delicious BBQ sauce, homemade too!
I’m wondering if a band member from Slightly Stoopid could perhaps bring back a souvenir for me. I’d like a handful of sand, an indigenous flower (something red), a handmade woven hammock purchased in a local bazaar, and perhaps a recipe for BBQ sauce.
Thanks!

I didn’t know Phil’s BBQ leaned right. Praise the Lord!! I’ll eat there more often.
By the way, if you don’t like their food, you have never eaten there. The long lines around their restaurant says more than your negative comments ever could.

History demonstrates that the right has effectively diluted the premier BBQ sauces of the United States with a great influx of money & high fructose corn syrup. In addition, many BBQ sauces are now made overseas & the parent companies have off-shored the recipes so they don’t have to pay taxes on the profits. The small mom ‘n pop BBQ sauce companies are being driven out of business by the corporations, or their labels are being bought up by the great BBQ sauce conglomerates. Remember what they say, “Competition in the BBQ sauce business is good for everyone,” but watch what they do; they drive towards a monopoly in the ever-shrinking BBQ sauce niche of the U.S. economic pie. When you’re considering BBQ sauce, think locally, if you can anymore.

There are lots of business, including small mom and pop’s that have to be incorporated. Usually what’s meant are “large corporations” that employ many, have boards of directors, have investors who reap in the profits, while usually the workers are forced to have small wages and the least amount of “benefits” possible.

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